Green Room

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: “There’s no need to have a Democratic budget, in my opinion”

Despite a stern letter from every Senate Republican, Senate Democrats “leaders” have made a political decision—DO NOTHING and attack Paul Ryan’s budget. But “doing nothing” is hardly new to this Senate. According to Byron York at the Washington Times, (and Senator Jeff Sessions), “The last time the Senate passed a budget was April 29, 2009, which was, if you are counting — and Jeff Sessions is — 755 days ago.” The so-called deliberative body of Congress, (controlled by the Democrats), have cowardly made another political choice by again ignoring the will of the people—to put the Federal Government’s fiscal house in order—and to stop the deficit spending. Instead, the majority leader and Senate Budget Committee Chairman, Kent Conrad have no intention of performing their statutory responsibility:

“There’s no need to have a Democratic budget, in my opinion,” Reid told the Los Angeles Times last week. “It would be foolish for us to do a budget at this stage.” Instead, Reid wants to wait to see if the deficit-reduction meetings led by Vice President Biden bear any fruit. Before that, Reid wanted to wait for the Gang of Six — now nearly defunct — to come up with something.

Sessions was appalled when he read Reid’s words. “It was a fundamental statement that they’re playing politics,” Sessions said. “They don’t think it’s politically smart to produce a budget. They’d rather produce nothing and attack Paul Ryan and the Republicans and think they’re going to gain politically by avoiding their fundamental statutory responsibility. It’s pretty breathtaking to me.”

Reid isn’t alone. The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Kent Conrad, is also happy to not produce a budget. Last week, he told reporters that he planned to “defer” work on a 2012 budget indefinitely.

And not just Senate Democrats are looking ahead to their political futures. Liberal Republicans, (yes, I said liberal, they’re not even qualified Rinos), Susan Collins and Scott Brown have already committed to voting against the House Budget. Brown is up for re-election next year, but Collins isn’t until 2014. Both seem to be oblivious to the fact that serious entitlement reforms are needed in the near future to insure their stability. Brown’s decision to reject the House Budget brought out condemnation from House Republican Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), who also took a political shot at, (whoops, I meant to say reprimanded), the president:

“Respectfully, Scott Brown ought to be ashamed of himself,” Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) told Neil Cavuto on the Fox Business Network. “This is the defining moment of this generation. We have got to be bold. We know these entitlements have to be reformed to be saved. He knows that.”

“Any Republican that doesn’t vote for this or doesn’t support this is purely being guided by political reasons,” Walsh continued. “This is not time to be politically scared. Every day I am in this town I am more convinced this president has no clue as to the financial cliff we are about to fall off of.”

So, as our “Senate Democratic Leaders” choose to “defer” or find “no need” in producing a serious budget for most likely the third year in a row, this nation continues to head down the path of fiscal insolvency, and exploding deficit spending, with no end in sight. Reid and Conrad have officially kicked the can down the road, abdicating their responsibilities in the name of political expediency, (apparently with the President’s blessing since he’s taken little or no part in the budget process). I would submit that these folks are the “radicals” and “extremist” in our government, not Paul Ryan or House Republicans who were sent to Washington to rein in the Democrat’s spending, (and taxing), programs this country can not afford. Democrat demagoguery is not going to cut it.

Blowback

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Comments

Thanks cmsinaz, I know Reid’s statement took place last Thursday, but it bares repeating over and over again that the Democrats never intended on passing a budget:

At Powerline, commenter Gary Thorkelson asked: “How can this be? The president proposed one, no wait, two, budgets. Liberal posters here have been reminding us that the dems do have a budget from as far back as last fall.”

And Powerline’s John Hinderaker replied: “Yes, good point. Obama did propose a budget that was ridiculous on its face. Then he gave a speech that rendered his budget inoperative. Congressional Democrats have taken the hint and won’t propose anything.”

This whole process starts and the top where this nation is certainly leaderless in my humble opinion.